


Shawty With You

by allthebros



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 5 Times, Canon, Christmas, Fluff and Angst, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Mistletoe, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 11:58:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebros/pseuds/allthebros
Summary: 5 times Pat and Jonny needed mistletoe to kiss, and one time they didn't (with bonus scene)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was posted as a ficlet on tumblr 2 years ago, and here it is in a more polished and expanded form. Chapter one is the original ficlet spanning December 2007 to December 2016 (when it was posted), but with more words (yay!) than the original version. Chapter two is a December 2018 extra scene set just after the December 23rd game against the Panthers.
> 
> Yes, the title is from that Justin Bieber song. One I hadn't heard of before googling mistletoe lyrics for this fic and then it just... stuck. I thought, I bet Patrick knows this song. 
> 
> This is unbeta'd because I'm a procrastinator and decided to finish this on Christmas Eve like an idiot (and wanted to post it for Christmas). It'll be cleaned up later but in the meantime I apologize for the typos. 
> 
> I hope you all have wonderful Holidays <333

 

 

1.  
**DECEMBER 2007**

Jonny slams the fridge’s door closed. Inside, the beer bottles rattle and clink together, and he opens it again, just a crack, to peer in and make sure nothing’s broken. He looks behind him just in case Seabs’ around and about to start bitching him out about how he should fucking stop slamming the fucking fridge door already.

Some rock track he’d bet money on is Duncs’ pick is blasting from the living room and it’s just loud noise for a moment until Jonny recognizes the beat. He doesn’t know the lyrics but he hums them around his beer, then takes a swig, leaning on the counter, pressing the cold bottle against the side of his overheated face. 

Steeger walks past on his way to take a piss, says, “Kaner wants to talk to you, Jon!” too loud even with the music, and Jonny gives him a fingergun.

He’s feeling great.

He and Seabs taped some tinsel to the wall to make it festive, and Jonny uses a hand to follow it back to the living room. He has a vague thought that the tape might fuck with Seab’s paint when they take it down, but whatever, Seabs a millionaire, he can repaint.

And hey, Jonny’s gonna be a millionaire too so he’ll chip in because he’s a good bro and the tape was his idea anyway. 

Kaner’s sitting on the edge of the sofa talking to Burr when Burr spots Jonny and points him out to Kaner, saying something Kaner has to lean in to hear. Kaner looks up then gets up and walks toward Jonny. He does it to the beat of the music and looks stupid. Jonny starts laughing. He’s about to point out how lameass Kaner is when everyone starts yelling. 

Jonny looks up.

He forgot about the mistletoe. He fucking forgot about the mistletoe.

All evening he’s been good at avoiding crossing this spot at the same time as any of his teammates, because who wants to smoosh any of their ugly faces anyway, but— 

“I fucking forgot about the mistletoe,” he says, squinting hard, feeling betrayed. 

“You said that already,” Kaner says, taking a swig of his beer, red across the nose and cheeks, obviously just as drunk as Jonny feels. He doesn’t seem bothered at all, but he gives Burr the finger before turning back to Jonny. “You just wanted a piece of this, admit it.”

Jonny scrunches up his face, says, “gross,” and flips off the whole room, the guys being jerks, yelling _kiss! kiss! kiss! kiss!_ over the music—now some EDM piece of shit track that Kaner probably chose. 

He can’t even pretend to be too annoyed about this, though. He’s loose and happy, and can feel the smile on his lips in the ache of his cheeks. It’s his first Christmas party with the team and he’s in the fucking NHL with the biggest bunch of beauties in the league. He loves those assholes already.

“Come on,” Kaner says, pursing his lips, making loud kissy noises.

They are so fucking drunk because no way in hell would Kaner be this chill otherwise. And another no way in hell would Jonny be thinking that if he was gonna have to kiss a teammate he’d rather it be Kaner.

Jonny makes it quick, but loud—a real smacking of the lips that lasts for a second, tops. The guys go wild and Kaner fake-gags while Jonny wipes his mouth. 

“I need some fucking shots to wash off that goddamn taste.”

“Eau de Kane, baby!” Kaner yells, and punches him lightly in the stomach. 

 

 

2.  
**DECEMBER 2009**

Jonny’s late to the party. 

He was pulled over by the cops on his way here for speeding and let off with a warning and an autograph. He’s not really proud of it but whatever, it’s the holidays, the cop said. Jonny supposes that maybe he was also happy the Hawks are having a good season so far. 

So it wasn’t the end of the world, but he’s annoyed anyway when he arrives. He lets himself in at Sharpy’s, shoves his coat over someone else’s in the closet because he can’t find a free hanger, and drops his boots in the downstairs bath with the others. 

“You’re late,” Duncs says from where he’s leaning against the kitchen counter. He takes a swig of his beer.

Jonny looks around and there’s no one here but him, hanging out in the kitchen beside a plate of veggies and chips. 

“The dip’s gluten free,” he adds when he sees Jonny peeking at it after taking his own gluten free beer from the fridge (it’s been several months now and he’s still getting used to it).

“Thanks, man,” he says.

Duncs nods, dips a carrot stick into the dip and walks out without another word, like he was waiting for Jonny to show up or some shit. Duncs’ fucking weird. It makes Jonny feel marginally better. 

Tension still sits tight in his shoulders somehow though, even after drinking most of his beer in one go in a half-hearted effort to catch up to the rowdy noises he can hear from the back of the house. He frowns, spike of annoyance zinging through his spine for no real reason. He’s already getting too warm.

It’s cold and windy outside, a sharp kind of weather that slides under clothes and skin, and he had to wear a sweater under his coat, something he rarely does. It prickles now as he crosses the house, right across his back and under his collar.

He spots Kaner first, dancing in place alone with a beer in his hand. A weird, choppy up-and-down swaging with his head low, looking at the floor with his arms up, bumping his whole body to a rap track Jonny’s never heard. Everyone else is just standing around or sitting on the sofas and it would be easy to believe that Kaner’s drunk as fuck right now except Kaner’s never needed to be that drunk to be this lame. 

The sight of him sparks something happy and angry between Jonny’s lungs and he’s about to turn around and find the rec room where he’s sure some of the guys are playing pool when Kaner spots him in turn.

“Jonny boy!” he yells, stretching the sound and pumping his fist in the air.

Jonny snorts, can’t help it, steps into the room to clink his beer to Kaner’s.

He catches to the silence behind the pounding music a second too late, and a second before all their teammates in the room erupt in yells and noise again, pointing at the ceiling.

Jonny looks up. His heart gives a hard kick. 

“Oh, fuck off!” Kaner tells the room, words getting lost in the resounding cheers and jeers, the pulsing music—so loud, the vibrations come right up Jonny’s legs.

The cheap, plastic mistletoe is tacked on the ceiling right over their heads with stick tape and Jonny tugs on his own shirt a few times, trying to cool himself. “It’s not even fucking real,” he says. 

When he looks down, Kaner’s looking right back at him and Jonny wants to punch him in the face. A hard blow, one right across his mouth—all red and wet from drinking. It flashes strong through him and he has to blink hard against the heat in his eyes.

Kaner’s jaw is clenched, his eyes just a fraction narrowed, and Jonny’s stomach twists hard when he takes a step, this painful, red-hot clench of his insides. 

It’s been doing that a lot lately. 

Jonny grips his drink tighter, fleeing impulse settling into his legs the way he always felt as a kid when he saw a guy barreling across the ice to slam him into the boards. And he feels Kaner’s next step like that too, like being trapped against the boards by a hard body unable to breathe for a quick moment.

Turning his shoulder against Kaner like he would a hit, Jonny rolls his eyes. “Shut the fuck up, assholes!” 

He feels the weight of Kaner’s hand on his shoulder a second before his mouth smacks against Jonny’s cheek. He stills, breath caught. This is the part after the check where he slides against the boards and falls hard on his knees on the ice and thinks, I’m gonna kill that asshole. A flash of a thought, adrenaline high.

“Woo, baby!” someone yells.

Kaner’s already walking away, turning around to flick his tongue at Jonny, holding up his #1 finger with one hand and taking a swig of his beer with the other. 

The spit Kaner left on his cheek feels cool and Jonny wipes it off.

 

 

3.  
**DECEMBER 2011**

They arrive at the same time. Jonny had thought about asking Kaner to carpool to the party, but he’s stayed late at Kaner’s last night and frankly he wasn’t fucking ready to see him so soon after, like they were more than… whatever they are.

He’s not even sure they’re really friends anymore. Teammates, yes. Friends, probably not. All they do is fuck. 

Kaner still waits for him beside his car when he see Jonny pull up, stamping his feet in the snow to keep warm. He’s got his hands shoved in his pockets, hat low on his ears, and head turtles in the collar of his coat. His nose is red and so his his mouth, parted and wet as it puffs white clouds of air.

Dicks and hands, only. No mouths. Never. Thems the rules.

Jonny’s always reminded of them when he sees Kaner like this, feels that tug inside that makes him want to press hard on those lips with his own or with his dick, he can’t ever decide. Because they don’t do that either. 

It’s stupid, he thinks sometimes, that he’ll let Kaner shove his dick in his ass but he won’t let him suck his cock. And vice fucking versa. But every time he really thinks about it, thinks about Kaner’s lips on any parts of his body, he wants to knee him in the gut and run for the hills as fast as he can. And from that time where Jonny accidentally brushed Kaner’s shoulder with his mouth as he fucked his tight ass from behind, and Kaner jerked so hard away from him that Jonny lost both his balance and his boner, Kaner probably feels the same. 

That’s why they have the rules. 

“I can’t fucking believe this,” Kaner says as they shuffle inside and trip over boots and shoes, Jonny cramming himself behind Kaner to shut the door as fast as possible. “It’s on the fucking floor!”

Jonny looks at their feet. They’re both standing on a mistletoe-shaped doormat and Jonny is so suddenly hot, he tips against the door, presses his forehead against the cold wood for a second.

“Didn’t even have to trick you this time,” he hears Seabs say and Jonny’s boiling in his coat, the wool makes his skin itchy and prickly and he has to take it off. 

“Let’s just get it over with, jesus,” Jonny says after Seabs assured them that he’s had to kiss Bicks so come on, stop wasting time. So he leans forward, too hot, absolutely too hot—it’s too hot in this house. 

But it’s dicks and hands only, baby. 

He pushes Kaner’s face away roughly at the last second—gives him a good face wash and lets his lips slide over his cheekbone, quick enough he’s only got time to smell his soap, and the sharp, fresh scent of snow. Quick enough to push in with his thighs where Kaner’s thick and warm to let him know.

And that’s what Kaner does later, in Jonny’s condo after the party, lights closed except for the bathroom’s and with his underwear still on. Grinds his dick hard on Jonny’s thigh with sharp little rolls of his hips. He could get himself off like that, Jonny’s seen it, but instead he shifts, gets his knees on either sides of Jonny so he can rock on his dick. Jonny’s seen that too, Kaner riding him this way, taking Jonny’s cock deep, using it to get himself off.

Jonny grabs at his shoulder, gets his arm around Kaner’s neck, gets him good with a thrust up when their dicks align and he’s got just the right amount of solid, heavy pressure on it.

“Shut up,” Kaner says even though Jonny’s said nothing. He rocks faster, wet breaths coming out fast against Jonny’s chin, dangerously close to touching him until he puts his hand over Jonny’s mouth. Jonny pinches his lips together under the pressure and breathes harshly through his nose, watches Kaner. Watches his parted mouth, the pink wet tip of his tongue peeking out. 

 

 

4.  
**DECEMBER 2013**

Surely, surely, it’s a bad, cosmic, fuck you of a joke. 

They don’t even hook up anymore, and it doesn’t matter how much Jonny thinks about it sometimes, how much he pokes at it—a bruise he won’t let go of. For months after they stopped they couldn’t even really touch each other outside of on-ice cellies. It’s still weird when they do, still sends heat under Jonny’s skin, uncomfortable and sharp.

He got a semi from a shoulder bump just last week. 

They’re friends again. 

Kaner rolls his eyes and smiles, tries to make it look smooth but it’s too wide, too loud, darting a look at Jonny’s face because he knows Jonny can see the lie. “I’m not drunk enough for this shit.” He goes for the shot glass on the living room table, makes a real show of tipping it back, and Jonny watches his throat bob as he swallows, watches some of the booze slide down his chin.

He thinks, hot, and tries to make it stick in his mind, tries to make Kaner feel it in a way that would make him squirm if Jonny said it out loud. But it doesn’t stick at all, and he can’t look long enough to make sure it would anyway.

But it is hot. It is. And Jonny has a moment where he sees himself with his hands on Kaner’s face, thumbs sweeping under his eyes, bending forward so he can slide his mouth of Kaner’s and catch the drops of booze there, slide his tongue inside for a full taste of it.

Kaner would hate it. Jonny doesn’t know if that makes him feel satisfied or hurt. He’s too chikenshit to try. 

“Just fucking get on with it!” Sharpy says.

“I think the Captain is starting to like it, man,” Kaner says with a smile just for Jonny, tongue poking at the corner of his lips.

Jonny smiles, too, says, “in your fucking dreams, Kane,” and bends down, taps his cheek with a finger. “Here, made it easier for you to reach.”

It’s a game they play. See how not fucking bothered I am by this, you. See how I don’t give a fuck. I don’t miss your dick at all. And Jonny doesn’t. He doesn’t. He doesn’t at all. 

Kaner licks his cheek instead, makes it sloppy and gross. And Jonny pretends that this isn’t the first time his tongue has been on him this way. Pretends that he isn’t immediately thinking of it licking Jonny’s cock. Pretends not to see the quiver in Kaner’s smile after. 

It doesn’t matter.

 

 

5.  
**DECEMBER 2015**

There’s something about empty kitchens during parties, Jonny thinks as he closes the door to the glasses cupboard and it thunks loud, sound bouncing off the tiles and marble counter and appliances, with only the muffled sound of music reaching him. He doesn’t know what it is, but it makes him want to take deep breaths. Makes him kind of lonely too. 

“No one to see us this time, thank fuck,” Pat says behind him, startling Jonny. His stomach twists and he slams his glass harder on the counter than he intended. He was avoiding this. 

He waits a moment too long before turning, takes his time to lean against the edge of the counter, raises an eyebrow. Pat looks amazing tonight. He wants to slide his hands under his nicely-fitted navy sweater and touch the warm skin of his stomach with his fingertips. 

He was definitely avoiding this. 

Pat shrugs and silently points up to the mistletoe hung in the middle of the archway leading to the kitchen. Real, this time, with a delicate golden bow on it. He quirks his mouth, a humourless flash of dimple, more grimace than anything.

He has no idea, Jonny thinks as he looks at him, at the way he’s leaning heavy on the doorway with his shoulders while stretching his legs forward, pushing his dick out and not even really realizing he’s doing it. He has no idea what Jonny’s done because of him, this. Because he wants this, him. 

His breakup, his fucking soul-searching. His thoughts all jammed up together and having to unpack every single one of them, one by one, knots so tight he’d have to work at them for days, weeks, months. He could barely look at himself in the mirror all summer.

He takes a deep breath. The guys are all downstairs in the rec room, but the kitchen’s too bright, too unforgiving for what he’s about to do, so he grabs Pat by the sweater and drags him around the corner, into the living room, dark except for the Christmas tree and the light spilling over the floor from the kitchen.

Pat’s always fought any hints of manhandling from Jonny, and so he expects it, but the usual stiff push back doesn’t come. He goes along easy, and Jonny doesn’t stop to ask why. The rattle the frames make when he slams Pat into the wall is satisfying but not as much as the hitching breath Pat takes the second before Jonny presses his mouth hard on his.

It’s stiff and rough on purpose. He wants Pat to understand something, his whole summer, where he’s arrived, what he wants but still can’t say with words. When Jonny pulls back, Pat’s staring at him with wide, surprised eyes. Even in the dim light, Jonny can see the wet shine of his mouth, can feel the way Pat’s breathing fast under his hands where he’s holding on to his shirt.

He swallows, heart hammering in his chest, and gets close again, slower this time, gives Pat a chance to push him away, turn his head, punch Jonny in the face. But when he doesn’t make a move, Jonny says, “this,” and slides his mouth over Pat’s, softer, not missing when Pat’s tongue touches his lips. Not missing when Pat’s hands are in his hair and he’s tilting his head sideways to get the angle right.

It’s wet and messy, mouths open and tongues darting out. Pat bites at Jonny’s bottom lips and Jonny pushes down on his chin with his thumb, gets some wet slide for it, swallows up the moan that comes out, caught somewhere between wanting to slow everything down, to take his time, and getting everything now as fast as he can before it stops. Before Pat realizes what he’s doing.

This, he thinks. This, this, this, this, this.

The quiet of the living room’s only broken by their breathing and the smacking of their mouths until the guys yell downstairs and Jonny’s pulling back, gasping with it. Pat knocks his head on the wall behind him, and Jonny sees it, the moment it catches up to him, the deepening of his face into a frown, into that edge of fear. The disgust creeping in, and the shame.

Jonny knows, he still feels it often, too. 

But not now. Now his heat knocks loud in his chest and he’s been wondering about this. Wondering if it was just in his head, just fantasies, just some hung up thing from their fucking days that he’d turn into something bigger somehow, something deeper when really it was only because Pat was the only dick he’d ever fucked. He doesn’t have to wonder anymore. Now he knows. 

He presses their foreheads together, pushes hard using his whole body, screwing his eyes shut. “You should ask yourself why,” he says, low, voice cracking.

“Why what?” Pat asks, brows furrowing as he touches the corner of Jonny’s mouth with a fingertip.

“Why you waited for me under that mistletoe.”

He slides his nose against Pat’s, takes a good breath of him, and watches the soft Christmas lights of the tree spill over him as he moves away.

 

 

+1  
**DECEMBER 2016**

Jonny’s down to his t-shirt and underwear, sitting on the edge of the bed, when the door between his and Pat’s rooms opens and Pat walks in, hands in the pockets of his sweatpants.

“Everything okay?” Jonny asks as he takes off his second sock, only glancing up at him.

It still hurts sometimes to look at Pat, to really look. To see him and remember that kiss a year ago and the confirmation that it brought. The truth that Jonny hasn’t been able to ignore since. There are days, though, where he catches Pat looking at him like he’s mulling something over, and Jonny holds his breath, holds it until his lungs burn. He’s gonna have to tell Pat to stop soon.

Pat lets out a long shaky breath, easy to hear in the silence. It’s late, there isn’t any sounds coming from the TV in the bedroom next door, or people in the hallway, or nothing. It might as well just be them awake right now—them and New York City outside the windows. 

“Last year,” Pat starts. Jonny’s heart gives a hard kick. “At Hammer’s.”

“Yeah?”

“I wanted you to kiss me,” Pat says, slow and measured likes he’s making sure Jonny hears it. “When I was waiting for you under the mistletoe. I wanted you to kiss me. I wanted to kiss you. That’s why I waited.”

Jonny blinks. Everything goes even quieter, except for the pounding in his ears. He stares at Pat’s shirt, feels his brain trying to catch up to the moment, process what Pat said. Trying to believe it while already doing so, like he wasn’t thinking just a moment ago about a way to ask Pat to let him move on. Like he wasn’t thinking about letting Pat go.

Pat comes closer until his legs are almost touching Jonny’s knees. “I want to kiss you.” He gives a small self-mocking laugh. “All the fucking time.”

He’s outside his body, seeing himself reach out. Seeing himself curve his hand on Pat’s hip to tug him closer until he’s between Jonny’s thighs. And then he’s back inside himself, pushing his face into Pat’s stomach, arms going ‘round his waist. 

Pat’s hands brush his shoulders lightly and for a second Jonny thinks he’s gonna be pushed away, that this is too much already, too quick. But he isn’t. Pat’s hands barely settle. It feels like he’s not sure how to touch Jonny even though he’s done it before. But not like this, Jonny thinks. Never like this. They’ve never done this.

He presses his face harder, shuts his eyes tight.

Pat’s right hand finally settles on the back of Jonny’s neck and he squeezes lightly, drags his fingers up to the back of his head. The cotton of his shirt is soft, smells like skin and soap, and Jonny rubs his face over it a few times before looking up.

Pat smiles at him—a small trembling, unsure thing that Jonny’s never seen on him, so he says, “kiss me,” because that’s what he wants and it’s what Pat said he wanted, and because there should not be any uncertainty about it.

Pat holds Jonny’s head between his hands and Jonny wraps his his fingers around his wrists to keep them there. “This,” he says.

“This,” Pat repeats. 

They look at each other a long time, Jonny searching for something there, on Pat’s face. There’s fear there, there’s fear in Jonny’s chest too. 

“I want to,” Pat whispers, before leaning in.

He kisses Jonny, small and soft, tender in the press of his mouth. A trembly thing for the space of a heartbeat before it switches into something more certain, more decisive in the way it slides over Jonny’s lips. He squeezes Patrick’s wrists harder and presses back.

Everything settles inside him. Finally. 

He licks his lips after, smacks them together, and smiles. “Eau de Kane, baby,” he says, laughing when Pat punches him in the shoulder.

Laughing still as he’s pushed to the bed and Pat has climbed over him, looks down at him with a wide smile that’s as true as any Jonny’s seen from him.

“What do you want?” he asks Jonny.

The answer’s the easiest Jonny’s ever had to say. “Do it again tomorrow.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

+2  
 **DECEMBER 2018**

The drive back to Jonny’s condo after the game is silent. 

Jonny shifts in the passenger seat, rolls his shoulders, unbuttons his coat because Pat’s blasting the heat and Jonny’s cooking in his clothes. He reaches out to turn it down, but Patrick slaps his hand away like he’s a child, glancing at him from the corner of his eyes, corner of his mouth ticking upwards.

Jonny gives a small puffy laugh. Tension from the loss seeps a bit more out of him. Fuck, he’d hoped to go on this break with a win, feeling high on it, instead of having to do this. Sitting in silence in the car trying to get rid of that frustration, that feeling of urgency he can’t quite shake off like they’re already running out of time, just so it doesn’t color his very short holidays. 

Jonny follows Pat upstairs, lets him open Jonny’s door with his own key. As soon as they’re in, Jonny drops his bag in the hall and makes a beeline for the bedroom, not bothering with the lights until he’s there and only switching the bedside table lamp on.

He drops his coat, scarf, and hat on the bed, then his suit. Standing in the middle of the room with only his underwear on, he shakes his limbs, stretches his neck, breathes deep. He kneels on the rug and goes into child pose, forehead pressed on the floor, until he feels more grounded. Until the game is more distant, something he can put away into a cupboard to examine later, but out of sight and mind for now. 

He thinks of calling Pat, of letting him find Jonny this way, on the rug with his ass in this air. Letting him fuck him like this, really make him forget about tonight’s loss, about their flailing season. It wouldn’t be the first time. Instead, he stands up again, puts on some sweats and a t-shirt, then picks some for Pat’s

Pat has as drawer for some of his clothes in Jonny’s dresser. He has a suit in Jonny’s closet. A toothbrush and deodorant and shampoo in his bathroom. Jonny’s got the same at Pat’s place. They don’t live together but they’re at each other’s places enough to warrant it.

Jonny sweeps a hand over Pat’s clothes, all neatly folded the way Jonny’s never really are. Some days it still feels weird that they’re here at all. 

He used to test himself with thoughts of things like this. He’d lie on his bed and imagine what it would be like to be with another guy. What it would be like to kiss him. To have his clothes in his closet. To sit across him at breakfast. To sleep in the same bed after they’re done fucking. He’d see how far he could go into the fantasy before he had sto stop. Some days, he couldn’t think of it at all.

He taps his fingers on the edge of the drawer and thinks, I like this. 

Pat’s sitting on the sofa in the living room still in his suit pants and shirt, tie and jacket discarded aside. He’s left all the lights off except for the Christmas tree and the light above the stove, spilling weak yellow light from the kitchen. The blinds are up, Chicago all lit up in the night.

“Think fast,” Jonny says, and throws Pat’s clothes at his head, laughing on his way to the kitchen at the “motherfucker” mumbled behind him.

“You kiss your mom with that mouth?” Jonny says over his shoulder, opening the fridge to grab them both a bottle of water.

“I kiss you with it,” Pat replies loudly so Jonny can hear him.

“Yeah, you do,” Jonny says to himself, smiling. 

When he comes back to the living room, Pat’s in his sweats, standing by the tree, small lights spilling colors over him, ornaments twinkling softly in the dark. 

Jonny has a flash of their first kiss, three years ago, tucked in a dark corner of Hammer’s living room. Of how he’d trapped Pat there against the wall, desperate and afraid he’d want to escape, but needing to put a confession there, on his mouth. It’s still insane to him that Pat heard him somehow. Insane that he did it in the first place, still all twisted inside and scared. Always so damn scared. 

Jonny realizes with a start that he hasn’t felt like that in a while. 

He sets the bottles down on the coffee table and wraps his arms around Pat’s waist from behind, pressing his front to his back and tucking his chin over Pat’s shoulder. He’s warm and his skin his soft through the cotton of his shirt. The crook of his neck smells like soap and skin and his deodorant for some reason.

Pat’s touching an ornament lightly, gold and red flashing over his fingers. He picks it off the branch and holds the little plastic mistletoe over their heads. 

Jonny snorts. “Don’t need that to kiss you,” he mumbles into Pat’s neck, puts a kiss there for good measure, then at the corner of Pat’s mouth when he turns his head. 

“ _I should be playin' in the winter snow, but I'ma be under the mistletoe_ ,” Pat sing-songs, and Jonny laughs, can’t help it.

“Oh my god.”

“It should be our song,” Pat says.

“No.”

“It’s decided then.” He puts the ornament back in the tree. “I was thinking,” he starts, licks his lips. Jonny waits for him to continue, watching the Christmas lights play over his face.

“What?”

Pat looks at the little ornament swinging lightly, but he brushes Jonny’s hands where they’re crossed over his stomach with his fingertips. “I was thinking I could… be here. More. More than what…”

Pat must feel Jonny’s heart pounding against his back, it’s beating so loud. He thinks of Pat’s drawer, of the little gift Jonny left there because he knows Pat is gonna pick up some clean underwear before bed. Pat does that, every night, and Jonny knows that he does. He knows these things now. 

“Or I could bring some to yours,” he says, very carefully, barely daring to breathe, an old fear spiking at the back of his mind, but one he can ignore now, can work through. “I don’t know how—But we can...” Figure it out, he doesn’t finish. Yes, he wants to say. 

Pat has gone very, very still in his arms, and Jonny tucks his face back into his neck, inhales deeply.

“I like it here,” Pat says eventually, hand closing around Jonny’s wrist and lips brushing Jonny’s hair. Jonny smiles against his skin.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr under the same name :D


End file.
